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States provide substantial support for higher education through appropriations to public colleges and universities that can be used to maintain relatively low tuition levels and funds for financial aid. Higher education often receives disproportionate cuts during recessionary periods, and it faces potentially unprecedented reductions in coming years amid a pandemic that has left some states with revenue shortfalls. How states approach higher education cuts has the potential to exacerbate existing inequities among racially minoritized and low-income students and historically underfunded institution types. In this study, we document trends in higher education funding over time and use latent profile analysis to identify distinct approaches states have taken to higher education funding. We then examine the trajectories of higher education funding within each approach over time, particularly during prior recessions. We conclude by discussing the implications of each approach for equity, particularly in light of states' early responses to the current economic downturn.

Performance-based funding (PBF) policies with research incentives have grown in popularity over the years despite little understanding regarding whether they actually work. This study leverages a novel national data set to examine the impact of PBF research incentives on the research expenditures and total state appropriations among public 4-year institutions, with a particular focus on minority-serving institutions. We find that PBF research incentives had no impact on the total amount or relative share of total research expenditures or the total amount of state appropriations allocated to treated institutions, regardless of minority-serving institution status. PBF policies that allowed institutions to self-select or opt into including research incentives as part of their PBF formula had a positive impact on the relative share of expenditures allocated to research and total state appropriations.

The study examines the impact of various types of performance-based funding (PBF) policies on institutional resources across postsecondary institution types. Although 41 states have implemented PBF over time, the design and dosage of PBF policies look very different across PBF-adopting states. We leverage multiple quasi-experimental approaches and find that high-dosage PBF policies had a negative impact on state funding for four-year historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and four-year institutions serving an above-average share of racially minoritized students. We also show that sporadic positive effects of PBF policies on state funding are concentrated primarily among non-minority serving institutions (non-MSIs) and institutions serving below-average shares of racially minoritized or low-income students. Taken together, our findings reveal the unequal impacts of PBF policies and suggest that PBF policy design is an important consideration with critical implications for under-resourced institutions and the underserved students they educate.

Dual enrollment (DE) programs allow high school students to take college coursework and simultaneously earn both high school and college credit. These programs have become increasingly popular in recent decades, with roughly one-third of high school students taking at least one DE course. However, the financial implications of taking DE courses have been an understudied yet important topic in higher education scholarship that can inform conversations surrounding ways to improve the affordability of higher education in the United States. Given the prevalent and long-lasting negative impact of heavy loan debt on college students, especially among low-income students and students of color, it is critical to reduce students' reliance on student loans with equity-minded interventions and policy responses. This study examines the relationship between DE and students' borrowing behaviors by exploring the following overarching research questions: (1) To what extent is DE course-taking related to the level of cumulative student loan debt? and (2) How does the relationship vary for students from underserved backgrounds?

This study examines the influence of varying levels of online enrollment on community college students' likelihood of degree completion, with a particular focus on completion outcomes among traditionally underserved subgroups of students. Using institutional transcript data from a high-enrollment community college and a propensity score weighting approach, I find that lower levels of online enrollment have a positive relationship with the likelihood of degree completion for Black, Hispanic, and low-income community college students, but enrolling in all online courses has a negative influence on the likelihood of degree completion across subgroups of community college students.

Even though a postsecondary degree can offer economic, social, and civic benefits, many community college students leave without earning a degree--including some who have performed well academically and made substantial progress toward graduation. To better understand the factors contributing to early exit, we surveyed a number of former students in a large community college system. We improve the generalizability of the survey responses through multilevel regression with post-stratification, which we use to reweight the responses to better represent the population in our original survey frame. We find that tuition and fees, living expenses, and no longer being eligible for financial aid are the factors contributing to early exit for the largest share of students. We also find variation in both financial and nonfinancial factors across subgroups, suggesting that targeted supports may be useful in helping students persist or return to college and complete their degree.

Roughly half of 4-year students who begin as STEM majors either change to non-STEM majors or drop out of college altogether. STEM attrition is especially disconcerting for underserved students, such as people of color or individuals from low-income families, who are significantly less likely to persist in or graduate from a STEM degree program when compared to their White or higher-income peers. Previous researchers have reported that co-enrolling at more than one institution (or swirling between institutions) can be associated with higher rates of persistence and graduation. In this study, we leverage student-level transcript data from a high enrollment, broad-access university to examine the influence of math swirling on underserved students' academic outcomes within high-demand STEM degree programs. We find that math swirling is positively related to persistence to upper-division math courses and bachelor's degree completion in non-STEM degree programs, but math swirling has no influence on students' likelihood of bachelor's degree completion in high-demand STEM fields.

This study draws on a comprehensive performance-based funding (PBF) dataset and up-to-date difference-in-differences econometrics to examine the impacts of specific policy features (e.g., share of institutional revenue at stake and equity metrics) on college access and selectivity. We find suggestive evidence that increases in the share of revenue at stake are associated with decreases in racially minoritized student enrollment. Meanwhile, equity metrics may not be enough to boost enrollment among underserved students. Ultimately, however, our conclusions are limited due to various potential sources of bias, unconvincing pre-trends, and wide confidence intervals. While findings offer limited insight into the impacts of specific design features, they point to limitations of PBF--regardless of design--in expanding access and reducing inequities at 4-year colleges.

The majority of states in the U.S. have adopted a performance-based funding (PBF) policy, but we know very little about how PBF adoption affects completion outcomes among underserved subgroups of students or whether specific design elements of PBF policies exacerbate inequities facing traditionally disadvantaged students. In this study, we show that high-dosage PBF policies had a negative impact on bachelor's degree production among racially minoritized students but a positive impact on bachelor's degree production among white students. We also report a positive impact on bachelor's degree production among adult students when the PBF policy included a targeted incentive for graduating adult students, suggesting that PBF policy design represents a critical but understudied area of study with implications for underserved students.

As state governments seek to improve the performance of institutions of K-12 and higher education, they often adopt educational policies that have similar names but different characteristics across states and with variations over time within states. Yet quantitative analyses generally examine the absence or presence of an educational policy instead of diving into details such as the dosage or percentage of funding tied to a policy or the specific groups being targeted by the implementation of the policy. The aim of this article is to provide guidance for education policy researchers in constructing and analyzing detailed data that can inform the design of state-level policies, using state performance-based funding policies in public higher education as an example. We also show how to conduct difference-in-differences analyses with continuous treatment variables in order to take advantage of more-nuanced data and better understand the context in which policies are effective (or ineffective).

Over the past few decades, technology has revolutionized the way colleges and universities operate. This study examines the extent to which investments in information technology (IT) are associated with the number and types of higher education personnel. After accounting for time lags between IT funding and personnel changes, we found that increases in IT funding were associated with increases in the number of higher education administrators and IT staff but decreases in the number of clerical workers. Our findings suggest that colleges and universities may be substituting expensive labor (higher education administrators and IT staff) for inexpensive labor (clerical workers).

This study draws upon the first detailed longitudinal dataset on performance-based funding (PBF) to document the evolution and current landscape of PBF in American higher education. We show that while PBF has become increasingly common, states have experimented with adopting, abandoning, and re-adopting PBF over time. We also find a new wave of PBF adoption occurring in the 2010s following the Great Recession. However, PBF remains a relatively weak policy lever with a small share of funds at stake in most states and some states not funding PBF even when it exists in legislation. Equity considerations vary in the student groups they include and less than half of two-year and three-quarters of four-year PBF systems include race when allocating performance funds. Our findings complicate some common characterizations of PBF and offer new insight for researchers examining how PBF policy design shapes student and institutional outcomes.

Previous research shows that low-income and first-generation college students are less likely to obtain the benefits associated with attending graduate school. No-loan programs, which typically administer financial aid through institutional grants, are designed to improve access and success among students from low-income backgrounds, but we know very little about the influence of no-loan programs after students enroll and eventually graduate from college. This study examines the impact of no-loan program participation on graduate school enrollment by leveraging a novel institutional dataset and applying regression discontinuity, difference-in-differences, and propensity score weighting approaches. Results indicate that no-loan program participation has a positive and relatively consistent impact on graduate school enrollment among low-income and first-generation students.

To address local workforce needs and expand access to affordable bachelor's degrees, some states allow community colleges to offer bachelor's degree programs. Despite concerns that community college baccalaureate (CCB) programs will duplicate efforts and cut into the market share of nearby 4-year institutions, extant literature has yet to examine the impact of CCB adoption on bachelor's degree program enrollment and bachelor's degree production at 4-year institutions. Using program-level data, our findings show that local CCB degree programs have a negative effect on overall bachelor's degree enrollment and bachelor's degree production at 4-year institutions, but this effect is concentrated primarily within for-profit 4-year institutions. This study represents the first comprehensive evaluation of the impact of CCB degree programs on neighboring 4-year institutions.

In this study, we develop and implement a text messaging re-enrollment campaign to encourage former community college students to return to college. Former students are randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups that either receives information to simplify the re-enrollment process or receives both information and a one-course tuition waiver. We find that providing information and a one-course tuition waiver to former students increases their likelihood of re-enrollment by 1.5 percentage points (21.1%), enrolling in multiple courses by 0.9 percentage points (16.4%), full-time enrollment by 0.5 percentage points (21.7%), and persistence by 0.6 percentage points (23.1%). This study highlights the importance of targeted interventions that address informational and financial barriers facing former students.

Community colleges in the United States continue to face financial difficulties related to declining enrollment numbers and lower levels of public funding when compared to four-year institutions. Previous scholars have suggested that community colleges may respond to these financial challenges by increasing their commitment to online education. In this study, we examine whether changes in local and state appropriations are related to the total number and relative share of online students at community colleges. Our findings reveal no statistical relationship between changes in local and state appropriations and online enrollment at community colleges, suggesting that the cost structure of online education may complicate this relationship.

This systematic synthesis examines the intended and unintended consequences of performance-based funding (PBF) policies in higher education. Within this synthesis, we focus particularly on evidence from research studies with strong causal inference designs in an effort to understand the impacts of these policies. PBF adoption is generally associated with null or modest positive effects on the intended outcomes of retention and graduation, but there is also compelling evidence that PBF policies lead to unintended outcomes related to restricting access, gaming of the PBF system, and disadvantages for underserved student groups and under-resourced institution types. PBF policies including equity provisions for colleges that enroll or graduate underserved student groups have been found to offset some of these unintended consequences. Based on this synthesis, we offer policy recommendations and directions for future research on PBF policies, including the need to consider variation in policy design and the broader state policy context.

Community college baccalaureate (CCB) degree programs have become increasingly popular in recent years, with over 100 community colleges in 24 states currently offering at least one bachelor's degree program. Despite the growing prevalence of CCB degree programs, the financial implications of CCB adoption remain largely unknown. This study leverages a novel national dataset and employs a difference-in-differences regression approach to examine the relationship between CCB adoption and multiple indicators of institutional revenue and financial priorities. We find that CCB adoption is associated with decreases in community colleges' reliance on public funds and increases in their reliance on tuition and fees.

Background/Context: Online education has become an increasingly prevalent medium of instruction and the primary source of enrollment growth for colleges and universities. The well-documented growth of online education is often regarded as a response to rising costs in higher education, but the same cost-saving strategies that would allow institutions to increase their net revenue through online education may also serve to endanger the quality of student learning. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study explores how leading universities reconcile financial and quality considerations when offering online education. Research Design: Drawing from interviews with 22 administrators, faculty members, and instructional designers, we conduct a qualitative analysis of how to navigate financial and quality considerations pertaining to the development and delivery of online courses and exclusively online degree programs. Findings/Results: The central finding of this study focuses on the importance and pursuit of quality as an actionable goal when offering online education. We also find emergent themes related to the business model of online education, the influence of online education on the changing faculty role, and the shift toward student-centered learning in online education. Conclusions/Recommendations: We offer a novel conceptual model, the Model of Quality-Driven Decision-Making in Online Education, to show how universities can navigate financial and quality considerations when offering online education in higher education.

Background/Context: As of 2018, a total of 19 states allow at least one community college to offer baccalaureate degrees. Previous researchers have suggested that community college baccalaureate (CCB) adoption will lead to a host of unintended consequences, including decreases in associate degree production. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study empirically examines the impact of CCB adoption on associate degree production and adds to conversations surrounding the consequences of CCB adoption. Research Design: We use a quantitative quasi-experimental research design to examine the effect of CCB adoption on associate degree production. Findings/Results: When comparing adopting and non-adopting community colleges within the state of Florida, the authors find that the adoption of CCB degree programs has a positive impact on overall associate degree production, but this impact varies considerably according to the type of academic degree program. Conclusions/Recommendations: Opponents of CCB legislation have argued that giving community colleges the authority to confer baccalaureate degrees will detract from the sub-baccalaureate institutional mission of community colleges, but our results suggest that the adoption of a CCB degree program is associated with an overall increase in associate degree production. Findings from this work should be an important consideration for policymakers seeking to increase baccalaureate degree production in addition to--not at the expense of--associate degree programs.

The traditional mission of community colleges is rooted in the provision of sub-baccalaureate education at a low price, but a total of 19 states have changed their legislative policies and currently allow community colleges to offer community college baccalaureate (CCB) degree programs. This study examines the impact of CCB adoption on the tuition and fees at CCB-adopting institutions. We leverage a novel national dataset and employ a difference-in-differences regression approach to find that CCB adoption is associated with increases in tuition and fees at public community colleges.

Objectives: In this study, we explore the influence of enrolling initially at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution on the selectivity of the destination 4-year institution. Method: We leverage nationally representative data and a propensity score matching approach to compare the institutional selectivity between students who begin at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution and those who begin at a 4-year college or university. To estimate the relationship between the community college pathway and institutional selectivity, we employ an ordinal logistic regression model. Results: We find that transferring from a community college to a 4-year institution had a positive influence on the selectivity of students' destination 4-year institution. More specifically, students who enroll initially at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution have a greater probability of attending a very selective 4-year institution and moderately selective 4-year institution when compared with native 4-year students. Students who transferred from a community college have a lower probability of attending minimally selective 4-year institutions and open-admission 4-year institutions when compared with otherwise-similar students who began at a 4-year institution. Contributions: By showing a positive relationship between the vertical transfer and the level of selectivity of students' destination 4-year institution, this study highlights a potential benefit of beginning at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution.

Objective: This study examines the role of community colleges in closing the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by studying whether beginning at a community college improves the likelihood of female students earning their bachelor's degree in STEM. Method: Using nationally representative data, we apply a propensity score matching approach to reduce the selection bias associated with a prospective student's decision to begin at a community college rather than a 4-year institution. For each gender group, we employ a logistic regression model to estimate the influence of the community college pathway on STEM bachelor's degree attainment. Results: We find that enrolling initially at a community college has a negative influence on students' bachelor's degree attainment in STEM for the pooled sample and male subsample. However, this finding does not hold for the female subsample, indicating that female students who attend community college before transferring to a 4-year institution are not less likely to obtain a bachelor's degree in STEM. Although additional analyses indicate that community college starters are more likely to drop out from a STEM bachelor's degree program, the impact only exists for the pooled and male samples but not for female students. Contributions: Considering the significant efforts community colleges have devoted toward creating a suitable environment for female students in which to thrive, this study provides empirical evidence that community colleges have the potential to narrow the STEM achievement gap between gender groups and provide significant utility for female students seeking a bachelor's degree in STEM fields.

Despite the financial benefits generally associated with expanding student enrollment through online education, many institutions may not know how to recruit online students. This case study drew upon interviews with 27 administrators from four public research universities in order to better understand how to recruit students for exclusively online degree programs. Findings revealed that administrators identify the characteristics and needs of prospective online students, outline which non-academic services can be outsourced to alleviate cost burdens, identify ways to leverage the institutional brand as indistinguishable from the individual online program, and prioritize personalized student interactions throughout the online student recruitment process.

In 2010, Tennessee enacted the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), which increased the proportion of state performance-based funding from 5.45% to 85% and added a 40% funding premium for progression and degree completions by adult students and low-income students. We collect data from 2001-02 to 2014-15 and use difference-in-differences estimation to compare a variety of counterfactual scenarios and examine the impacts of the CCTA. In response to the CCTA, community colleges in Tennessee saw, on average, a 10% to 18% decline in the number of adult students and a 17% to 31% increase in the number of low-income students. Additionally, the CCTA produced no changes in associate degree completions yet significant increases in short-term certificates (192% to 249%) and medium-term certificates (129% to 144%).

This study examines the influence of first-year online enrollment on the long-term academic outcomes of postsecondary students. Using a nationally representative sample and propensity score weighting, I find that enrolling in some online courses is associated with lower odds of dropping out of college. Additional results reveal a positive relationship between enrolling in some online courses and sub-baccalaureate indicators of long-term academic success, such as earning an associate's degree and transferring from a community college to a 4-year institution.

State support for public higher education has been a primary concern for decades. Online education has been identified previously as an alternative revenue source that can offer financial relief to colleges and universities. This study uses IPEDS data and a fixed effects regression approach to examine whether public universities increase their reliance on online education in response to decreases in state appropriations. Consistent with resource dependence theory, we found a negative relationship between state appropriations and online enrollment at public 4-year institutions. Our findings indicate that public universities, particularly public doctoral institutions, appear to be responding to declines in state appropriations by engaging in revenue diversification and increasing their commitment to online education.

The notion of merit-aid is not a new development in higher education. Although previous researchers have demonstrated the impact of state-adopted merit-aid funding on student decision-making, fewer studies have examined institutional pricing responses to broad-based merit-aid policies. Using a generalized difference-in-difference approach, we extend previous empirical work by examining the impact of merit-aid on institutional pricing strategies while considering both the institution's tuition-setting authority and the relative strength of the merit-aid program. In this study, we find that colleges and universities with the authority to set their own tuition increased their in-state tuition and fees following broad-based merit-aid policy adoption; however, institutions with state-controlled tuition-setting authority respond to broad-based merit-aid policies by lowering their in-state tuition and fees. Our findings suggest that the incentives and dynamics of each state's policy environment are significant determinants of institutional responses to state-level policy adoptions.

Information technology (IT) spending has increased in every sector of higher education during the past decade despite a lack of meaningful data pertaining to its impact on productivity. This study, which was guided by the production theory, used a unique data set and dynamic fixed-effects panel model to examine the relationship between IT funding and institutional productivity in the form of teaching, research, and service outputs. Findings revealed that investments in IT are positively related with teaching and service outputs for private and nondoctoral institutions, whereas investments in IT are positively associated with research outputs for public and doctoral institutions.

A growing number of states use performance-based funding (PBF) systems to tie appropriations to student outcomes. Yet while many studies have examined the effects of PBF on enrollment and completion outcomes, no research has considered whether PBF affects post-college outcomes. This is of particular importance as more states directly incentivize colleges to improve student earnings and have students major in high-demand fields. We used the first detailed longitudinal dataset of state PBF policies to examine the effects of PBF on student earnings and found some modest positive effects concentrated among students who were already enrolled in college when PBF was first implemented. However, these small increases could also reflect other trends occurring prior to the implementation of PBF and analyses show this increase was not sustained among later cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compiled the first longitudinal data set with detailed state funding information to examine whether different funding strategies for public higher education correlate with college access and completion, with a focus on outcomes among racially minoritized students. We found no relationships between funding mechanisms and student outcomes at public universities. However, at community colleges, we found that funding strategies that combine base adjustments and enrollment or performance components may increase enrollment, but not completions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that state performance funding policies do not increase baccalaureate degree production, but higher education scholarship lacks a rigorous, quantitative analysis of the unintended consequences of performance funding. In this article, we use difference-in-differences estimation with fixed effects to evaluate performance funding in Indiana. We find that performance funding did not increase the number of graduates and instead led to declining admission rates and increased selectivity at Indiana's public universities. When compared with surrounding states, we find limited evidence that the effects of performance funding could disproportionately limit college access for Indiana's low-income and minority applicants.